It Enhances Our Sense Of The Grand Security And Serenity Of
Nature, To Observe The Still Undisturbed Economy And Content Of
The Fishes Of This Century, Their Happiness A Regular Fruit Of
The Summer.
The Fresh-Water Sun-Fish, Bream, or Ruff, _Pomotis
vulgaris_, as it were, without ancestry, without posterity, still
represents the Fresh-Water Sun-Fish in nature.
It is the most
common of all, and seen on every urchin's string; a simple and
inoffensive fish, whose nests are visible all along the shore,
hollowed in the sand, over which it is steadily poised through
the summer hours on waving fin. Sometimes there are twenty or
thirty nests in the space of a few rods, two feet wide by half a
foot in depth, and made with no little labor, the weeds being
removed, and the sand shoved up on the sides, like a bowl. Here
it may be seen early in summer assiduously brooding, and driving
away minnows and larger fishes, even its own species, which would
disturb its ova, pursuing them a few feet, and circling round
swiftly to its nest again: the minnows, like young sharks,
instantly entering the empty nests, meanwhile, and swallowing the
spawn, which is attached to the weeds and to the bottom, on the
sunny side. The spawn is exposed to so many dangers, that a very
small proportion can ever become fishes, for beside being the
constant prey of birds and fishes, a great many nests are made so
near the shore, in shallow water, that they are left dry in a few
days, as the river goes down.
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